Official Republican National Convention 2012 Discussion Thread

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Who is this women? Name dropping that many states is just not doing it for me.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would be really concerned if a bunch of Libs weren't driven absolutely nuts by a GOP convention.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Thank God Senator Ayotte wasn't chosen as the VP!!!

Agreed, she wouldn't have been a good match for Mittens, precisely because of this.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would be really concerned if a bunch of Libs weren't driven absolutely nuts by a GOP convention.

Maybe if the Herman Cain or Governor Rick Perry hadn't been so rudely snubbed.

What's wrong with Ayotte? She seems pretty good?

She is, but as a speaker, she isn't good match for Mittens.

Perry I can see, Cain probably not for obvious reasons.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

More Hands!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Rick Santorum 2012=Pat Buchanan 1992?

No, he stopped short of that when talking about the family by mentioning and honoring the hard work of single mothers. I think this is a great speech. I think that if he kept focused on these themes and not gotten lost in the weeds on contraception and other controversial issues, he might be VP or even the nominee himself.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Minus all the hands, it was a great speech in my opinion.


As my mom said, "Where was that Rick Santorum in the primary?"

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Revolution was in 59 and he left in 57?

Repression in Cuba didn't begin in 59. Just because the previous regime had US backing, didn't mean they were a Jeffersonian Democracy.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Ann did a great job, a perfect balance of personal and political. I think she went a long ways in portraying Romney as more of a 'regular' American rather than a soulless, corporate robot.

Christie however came across as self-serving. Also I am not sure if his repeated attacks against teachers was so wise (there are much easier and lucrative targets for Republicans). Plus nothing he said was particularly memorable.

Ann: A-
Christie: C+

I think Christie was more about branding the GOP as a party of tough-talking fixers who will say when things will bad and try to lead the country to solutions and better days, not run and hide from the problem. In that, I think it served its purpose. Today was dominated by Governors and small business people and the clear goal was to simultaneously criticize Obama (bleed in from Monday's cancelled stuff) and also showcase real people to do it. The Governors, Kasich, Walker, McDonnell, and Christie were meant to showcase how Republican leadership is different. 

As for Ann, I agree completely. And you have to keep in mind she was delving into their private lives in such fashion as they haven't done before on such a large stage. It is safe to say this a couple that prefers to remain private about their family, religion and such forth and thus this speech had a degree of added difficulty in that sense. I thought she did well.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Did they really just play a clip of "We Built This City"?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He cited a GM plant that closed in 2008, under Bush. He's been called out on it before.

Did Obama really promise it would be open for another 100 years if he was elected? If so, I think it is a legitimate critique not of "Obama being responsible for causing it", but instead "Obama failing to meet his promises to turn the situation around. Which does sum up the GOP argument concerning Obama's economic record.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

He cited a GM plant that closed in 2008, under Bush. He's been called out on it before.

Did Obama really promise it would be open for another 100 years if he was elected? If so, I think it is a legitimate critique not of "Obama being responsible for causing it", but instead "Obama failing to meet his promises to turn the situation around. Which does sum up the GOP argument concerning Obama's economic record.

I mean, he spoke those words in February 2008. The most likely explanation is that he didn't realize how bad things were going to get a year later. "The situation" wasn't fully known at the time. It's basically criticizing him for failing to predict how badly things would get in Bush's final year.

Yes, but 100 years referring to a specific plant? That is just asking for trouble based on the previous decades' experience, alone. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I really dont like the 'our rights come from nature and god and not from government'....not only is it insulting to the non-religious, it is clearly not accurate. Our rights come from the constitution, the founding document of the government

Jefferson, a Democrat, does not agree.  

Jefferson was a Republican.

Equating the GOP founded in 1854 with the party founded by Jefferson in 1792 is very misleading as the GOP was far more Federalist/Whig, then anything else. On the other hand, Jackson's Democratic party had plenty in common with that of Jefferson in that it was agrarian and aimed far more at small farmers of the South and West.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

[

But in any case Jefferson called himself a Republican.

Actually, I don't think he ever did.  The Party was called Democratic-Republicans.

In some cases, both Jackson and Jefferson had instances of a strong federal government, the nullification crisis and McCulloch v. Maryland, respectively.

The term Democratic-Republican is an invention of contemporary historians, not part of the historical record as far as I am aware. Mostly foor that reason it is falling out of use but also because, yes,  as the modern GOP resembles them more rhetorically, the need to emphasis the distinction has also declined.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The GOP of today is closer to the Democratic-Republican party that Jefferson was part of. Why don't the Dems have Wilson-Roosevelt dinners and  the GOP can have Coolidge and Reagan day dinners.

I don't consider Abe a Republican. He was the National Union Party

I disagree entirely. When I think of the connection between Lincoln and the Republican Party, even of today, I think of it in these terms. Lincoln was opposing the party "of the people" and "of popular sovereignty", who were essentially arguing that it took only a 51% majority to deprive a man of his freedom and liberty. The founders, yes slaveholder Jefferson himself, never qualified "All men are created equal" with "except where a majority says otherwise". Therefore, Lincoln and the Republicans, by opposing the extention of slavery and desiring to contain it in the hopes of killing it, were struggling to restore the values of the Republic that were being corrupted by the continued existance of slavery, as well as the notion that the majority vote was the end all be all of a free system. The tyranny of direct democracy being relived in a representative system. Is that not the ultimate ideal of modern conservativism? A system where there are checks and balances, even on the excesses of the populace? Where freedom comes not from the gov't (even an elected one) but it is given by god? Where the intent of the founders is respected, even if they themselves fell short of their own noblest ideals?

The GOP shouldn't abandon Lincoln, it should re-embrace him and seek to maintain that link with him. The Democrats still claim to be the party of the people, even if those people are urban and liberal isntead of rural and agrarian. That is why they maintain their links to Jefferson and Jackson. Why shouldn't the GOP maintain its links with Lincoln?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

But in any case Jefferson called himself a Republican.

Actually, I don't think he ever did.  The Party was called Democratic-Republicans.

Did you even read the Jefferson quote I gave earlier, or do you enjoy looking foolish?  The name Democratic-Republican is a largely ahistorical name given to them to distinguish them from the later National Republicans and the modern Republican Party.  Just like no one ever called himself the Byzantine Emperor, yet we refer to the Byzantine Empire when we wish to speak of the later Eastern Roman Empire of 395-1453.

Indeed, it was "basileus" or Emperor of the Romans.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I really dont like the 'our rights come from nature and god and not from government'....not only is it insulting to the non-religious, it is clearly not accurate. Our rights come from the constitution, the founding document of the government

Jefferson, a Democrat, does not agree.  

Jefferson was a Republican.

Equating the GOP founded in 1854 with the party founded by Jefferson in 1792 is very misleading as the GOP was far more Federalist/Whig, then anything else. On the other hand, Jackson's Democratic party had plenty in common with that of Jefferson in that it was agrarian and aimed far more at small farmers of the South and West.

And today's Democrats would follow the small government policies of Jefferson and Jackson?

The Federalist and Whig parties were the parties in favor of a robust Federal government capable of taking action.

But in any case Jefferson called himself a Republican.

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That is because the commerical interests began to see gov't as a bigger threat to them than Daniel Shays or the Parisian mobs beheading people left and right, which is what motivated them in the first place to pursue a strong federal gov't in the 1780's and 1790's with the Federalists. We can probably debate the year that occured (somewhere between 1896 and 1932), but it isn't as if they change party's or their desires to have policies that favored business. The policies and ideological view of gov't deemed most likely to advance their interests changed in reaction to the "party of the people" deciding it was in their best interests to use gov't as a means of serving their interests.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yankee, they've (the democrats) have abandoned Jefferson and Jackson and embraced Wilson, Roosevelt and Obama. I'm a lifelong Republican and  I personally don't trace my idealogical roots through Lincolin. This is my republican root tree. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Cleveland, Coolidge, Taft, Goldwater, Reagan, Paul. You do bring up a really strong point . Can't the GOP make an argument of claiming Jefferson and Madison as one of their own?

I guess my grandmas New Dealer roots have some side effects I need to get out of me without taking the positives out.

Of course you can make such an argument because the GOP has embraced many of their princples and views of Gov't in terms of the Constitution, size and scope of gov't, etc etc. The point I am making is you have to look at motivations and desired interests also, not just static ideologies and positions through time. Indeed in the 1830's, many former Jeffersonians were brought into the fold of the Whig party in opposition to Jackson, and many Jefferson-Jackson Democrats were brought into the GOP in the 1850's and 1860's. And throughout the subsequent decades in the 20th Century, millions of small gov't Democrats migrated to the GOP.

Anyway, Convention time.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am glad this ain't in primetime. Jesus this kid can't speak.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Definately a great presentation overall, but especially Jeb Bush is doing wonderfull. They should have done this kind of thing on other key issues like Energy and Healthcare.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

They already showed this video.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yes it is good, to be sure. Perhaps they planned to run it all three nights, but I only recall seeing it I think on Tuesday.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What time are we expecting Mitt to speak at? I need to know when to get the campsite-3G arrangement set up.

10:20 or so probably, which is absolutely horrible timing for me for reasons I shall not mention.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

One of the things that have hurt Romney on the "Humanization" front is that politics and the stupidity of bigots have dictated that he remain as quiet as possible about his faith, just speaking in general terms.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It is a bit too petty to be truly disgusting... but I hope those poking fun at the woman who just spoke consider what she has been thru these past few years, not to mention the decades she spent raising a special needds child.

I have learned that the cloak of party lables on here enables people to get away with the truly disgusting and most despicable behavior.